A WESTBURY-based company has been presented with a prestigious Queen’s Award for Enterprise.

The award was presented to EdTech company Scanning Pens by Mrs Anna Turner, the Lord-Lieutenant of Shropshire at a dedicated ceremony held at Hoar Cross Hall near Telford on September 9.

The accolade celebrates Scanning Pens’ outstanding success in the field of international trade over the past three years.

It was awarded to chief executive officer Jack S. Churchill and chief operations officer Toby Sutton in the presence of their families and co-workers.

The High Sheriff of Shropshire, Tony Morris-Eyton, representatives from the Department for International Trade, and members of the local government also attended.

Created in 2003, Scanning Pens supplies text-to-speech devices to people with dyslexia, as well as raising awareness of dyslexia worldwide.

The company, whose head office is at Heywood House, supports people whose daily lives are impacted by literacy differences.

Scanning Pens devices represent a huge quality-of-life change for neurodiverse people, and work by allowing users to scan through and listen to texts via an audio feedback system.

Removing the need for in-person readers and modified texts, they make reading an independent act, and help people who struggle with reading able to engage with texts in the same way that a neurotypical person might.

Mr Churchill said: “We are over the moon to have received the Queen’s Awards for Enterprise. As a team we’re over the moon to have our work recognised in this way.

"Our company came together last week for the first time in two years to receive the award and celebrate. This award encourages us to redouble our efforts to support more people to overcome their struggles with weak literacy.”

As a multinational business, Scanning Pens has dedicated the past 18 months to exploring what new opportunities they can offer to people with dyslexia and literacy differences during the Covid-19 pandemic, as well as continuing to support the markets that rely on their award-winning text-to-speech technology.

The last three years has seen a significant increase in the company’s overseas markets, growing from one UK office and ten UK staff, to two UK offices, and one office each in USA, Australia, Canada, and India with more than 80 staff around the world.

The event at Hoar Cross Hall was attended by a number of accessibility and EdTech industry champions, with representatives from Landau, Phonic Books, The Shannon Trust, Novus, Nasen and the Shropshire Dyslexia Association.